Alexei Navalny on the program “Program 2019” dated January 25, 2019

All right, I’m starting. Yes,

>> well, you’re going live and all that. And I can

introduce you—you probably haven’t been here

for about three months.

>> I don’t know, actually, by the way, I even

got asked where Navalny had disappeared to.

Where did he go? Can he really just disappear?

>> No, we’re on air now.

>> Well, they already said that Navalny was finished.

>> Well, he somehow looks younger to me for now.

I don’t know by how much—I just did like

Putin. They have body doubles,

eight of them, while I have one. Well, I mean,

sort of I do.

>> Eight, yes. Someone told me yesterday,

someone was telling me yesterday that there were four or

16.

>> I’m the tanned double of the pale Navalny.

the broadcast of this program on our

YouTube channel. You need to turn it off

>> program

19.

>> Good evening. This is the program 2019.

Today, the hosts are this lineup:

Irina Vorobyova,

>> Vitaly Dymarsky. Yes, today we have

a new pair of hosts, and also our

frequent guest, although he hasn’t been

on the air for a long time, so let’s introduce him right away.

I was going to say politician Alexei Navalny,

but in light of recent events I can now also

call him labor organizer Alexei

Navalny. But we’ll explain that

in a moment, yes, our

phone lines are open.

All right. We’ll hold him to account. Alexei

Navalny is with us

>> Yes. The number for SMS messages is

+7985 970 4545. You can also, yes,

write through the account, through the website,

through the app, and even try

writing something in the YouTube chat, but I’m

not sure I’ll see it, though I’ll

do my best. A lot of people are watching and

a lot of people are writing, so, well,

there may be a problem.

>> Well then, let’s start with an explanation,

>> what was that? I want to ask, what kind of

union is this, something about salaries?

I want Russia to be a little less

poor. And that has a practical

application: when we say Russia is

poor, well, to be completely frank,

wages are very low for work that

is paid much better even in Eastern Europe.

In Russia, people are paid little. And

this specific project that we’ve

launched is our first step in the fight

for wages. It consists in the fact that I

want people to get back what they were

promised, because in Russia there are 6 million

people—state-sector employees—whose salaries

are guaranteed by Putin’s

May decrees (a set of presidential policy orders issued in May 2012). This was his main

campaign promise in 2012:

guys, yes, dear

public-sector workers, vote for me and your

salary will be brought up to the regional

average. That means—and I brought

a cheat sheet with the figures with me—that a doctor in

Moscow cannot earn less than

164,000

rubles. I can see Irina Vorobyova. It’s a pity

radio listeners can’t see her eyebrows

shooting up, because, well, I can

say even more, namely that

>> a nurse in Moscow cannot earn

less than 82,000, because the average salary in

Moscow, according to Rosstat, is 82,000 rubles. And

public-sector salaries are pegged to that. And

on average, the salary of a nurse, a cultural-sector

worker, a teacher,

should be tied to it. A schoolteacher in Moscow

cannot earn less than 82,000, and

a university lecturer in Moscow, again,

should earn 164,000 on average.

>> And in reality now, you know,

>> in reality they earn much less. Even

if we look at Rosstat, we see

that the figures are lower. But how much does

a paramedic in Moscow earn? 25,000, 30,000, 35,000—but not 82,000,

surely you’d agree. But aside from these figures, why

did you suddenly decide to take on the mission of

fulfilling Putin’s promises?

>> Because no one else will, because

Putin doesn’t want to keep his promises.

So I took on that mission. Look.

>> Well, the promises are the right ones.

>> The promises are right. This isn’t some crazy

salary. It’s a normal salary.

82,000 rubles for a nurse living

in the very expensive city of Moscow is

a normal salary for a full

working day. And the thing is, she was promised it,

it was guaranteed, money is allocated for it,

but no one delivers. There are 6 million

people who have been silent for several

years, but everyone understands that it’s a lie.

No one is paying such huge salaries.

Maybe in Moscow, at least, something

is being implemented, but take St. Petersburg—you’re there often,

right?

>> That’s an understatement—I live there.

>> Exactly. Quite right. But tell

me, please: in St. Petersburg, does a doctor

earn 118,000 rubles on average?

>> I don’t think so.

>> And does a nurse earn 60,000 rubles? Do you think

someone in a kindergarten earns that? Hardly,

even though that is what the May decrees guarantee.

And I, as you said—a politician, or

not a politician, a union leader—decided

to do something simple, well, our team did.

There are these 6 million people—more precisely, 5.8 million.

We want to represent them. These are the very

public-sector workers whose salaries, yes,

are regulated by the May decrees. So,

we are going to represent their interests, we

We’ll fight for them using different methods.

When a person is officially paid 60,000 rubles on paper,

but in practice gets 35,000. Well, we’re not going to

stay silent — we’re going to make a scandal about it.

>> Wait, how does this work? I went

to this website, and there

you’re asked to choose one of the professions.

And then it asked me — well, I

picked one hypothetically; obviously I don’t

actually work in that job, but still.

Then it asked me whether I earn

that amount of money. I said, “No.” And

what happens next? Am I offered the option to file

a complaint?

>> Yes, you’re offered the option to file a complaint.

And you can write it yourself, in

your own name. Our website will generate

a complaint for you addressed to various places, from the

Prosecutor General’s Office to the local governor.

Or maybe you don’t want to send it yourself,

and then our lawyers will write it on

your behalf. And very often, well, people somehow

are afraid,

>> well, a complaint that the

May Decree is not being carried out, because

>> that’s the main fetish of the modern

Putin regime. It keeps constantly

saying that the decrees are being fulfilled. What’s more,

just today Peskov, my

great friend, said something funny when

he was asked, “What do you think of it?” He

said, “We view all

monitoring systems positively.” Why did he say

that? Because Putin has said 100 million times

that the May Decrees are being fulfilled, and

they cannot, at the official level,

admit that in St. Petersburg a nurse

earns not 60,000 rubles, but 25,000.

They simply cannot admit it. And that

is how it works. So, go

on. If you’re afraid, if you’re

a nurse and you’re afraid you’ll be fired

by the chief physician just for complaining, you

write anonymously, and the trade unions we work with

— then the union organization itself

will submit appeals and write

everywhere that in this hospital, please conduct

an inspection: there are nurses there who

are being paid less than they should be. Obviously,

it won’t be a simple process. They’ll

brush it off,

ignore it, well, carry out

inspections that lead nowhere.

But at least we’ll start moving

this process forward. At the very least, we definitely

won’t let them lie that they pay everyone

well when in fact they pay everyone poorly.

>> Alexei, is this a nominal trade union, or is it

a real membership-based union, an organization

that will be formally

registered somewhere? I don’t know, if that’s

required — is it actually a trade union?

>> What’s written on the website as “Navalny’s trade union”

is, of course, a conventional

name, but within all of this there are

perfectly real trade unions — genuine ones with

membership and registration. And interestingly,

the law on trade union activity actually

provides that a trade union does not

need — it says so explicitly — it does not

require state registration.

That is, we heard the proposal, passed a resolution, and

got together — right here, now, you could

call in Venediktov and create a journalists’ union

with three people. That’s

enough — though on second thought, kick Venediktov out.

Yes. Yes, right. He’s the employer. And

you’re the employees? You need three people. We’ll

file a complaint against your Venediktov. I’ll defend

your interests in that sense. What I found

interesting is that I received a huge

number of letters about

why, for some reason, we picked these 11

categories of workers and not others.

Do you know who writes in the most?

Firefighters, EMERCOM workers (Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations) — apparently they’re in really bad shape overall.

It’s worth asking how they’re being paid, because

there’s a huge wave of appeals from them and

their wives. “My husband works as a firefighter,

and they barely pay him at all.”

>> Their workload is already insane.

By the way, one of our listeners is asking about this on YouTube.

Well, hold on — you can’t

just say that a doctor should

earn, say, 120,000 rubles. Doctors

are different, their workloads differ,

their qualifications differ — everything differs. So how,

how

>> One hundred percent. So some people can be paid

more, some can be paid a little

less, but if you are

guaranteed — again, for Moscow the figure they cite is

around 164,000 rubles — well, fine, if

his workload is lighter, he gets 140,000. But

if he is paid, excuse me, 50,000 when

164,000 was promised, that is already a serious

violation. The one who works more

should earn more. But this is the average

minimum that was promised. Alexei. Well, on the

other hand, look, an election

promise is not a law, right, that

must be carried out.

>> In this case, the law is the May

decrees, because politicians everywhere,

in every country, promise things and

very often do not fulfill their

promises. Yes. But only because

these were formalized as decrees. Do you consider

that to be law?

>> Well, let’s put it this way: Putin made many

promises, and not one of them is being fulfilled.

But these May Decrees on wages

are not just promises. They are,

first of all, formalized by decree. It has been repeatedly

stated that they have been fulfilled. Besides, did you

know that United Russia introduced

a bill on criminal liability

for failure to comply with the May

the decrees as they relate to wages. And in that sense,

as I already said, this is a sacred cow.

They keep lying, saying that Putin

says the May decrees (a set of presidential decrees issued in May 2012), the wage-related ones,

have been fulfilled by what, 93%? So what we

want to say, and are saying now, is that either

you pay up, or else stop

lying that you have fulfilled them.

>> Aren’t you afraid right now, hold on, that

the people who will end up suffering are the heads

of fire stations, who have nothing to do

with this, they’re just not being given enough

money, or chief physicians, who are not at fault

here either, and so on. They’ll be the ones who suffer, while

not the people who

>> They’ll suffer? They definitely won’t suffer,

because they earn less.

>> Well, first of all, they sometimes really do earn

less. And people write to us from among

the heads of institutions: "And can governors,

governors who are not implementing the May

decrees, suffer? Let them

suffer." That is their job, they have

a specific task: to implement these

May decrees. And Putin, again, at

every meeting, bangs the table and

says, "We allocated the money to you.

Why didn’t it reach the medical

workers?" So yes, let them suffer.

But the chief physician won’t suffer here at all. And

I think Irina and I were talking, and there were even

questions before we went on air, that

with this activity of yours, this new

kind of work, I would say,

you seem to be emphasizing

a somewhat non-market, so to speak,

character of these kinds of measures, right?

>> That’s a common misconception. Excellent.

Thank you for asking me

that question. It’s very important, because

this is a long-standing, deeply rooted

historical misconception of the Russian

opposition: that being pro-market means

that these public-sector employees should basically

starve to death, or that they’re

supposed to be paid little. Because

public-sector workers work for the state, and

therefore, by definition, they’re supposed to be poor. And

and

the democratic opposition, supposedly,

should be closer to

oligarchs, or rich people, or the middle

class. And it shouldn’t defend the poor.

I categorically disagree with that. And

I will say honestly and unequivocally that I believe

the democratic opposition should

move toward the center-left. Yes, that’s right.

Russia is a poor country, and the fight for

wages is a direct task of the opposition.

The Democratic Party in the United States, a rich

capitalist country, fights for this. Its

main demand is raising the minimum

wage. They fight over wages. For us, it is all the more

necessary. And this is an absolutely market-based

measure. What the state is doing now,

by contrast, is not market-based, because

the state is a monopolist, especially for

public-sector workers. It twists their arms

precisely because that nurse in

Tomsk Region has nowhere else to go to work

anymore,

>> Yes. But in itself, the very form

of a presidential decree on wages is already not

a market measure.

>> Well, what do you mean by market-based? If it’s a

state hospital, then wages in a

state hospital are determined by

the state. The other issue is that

the state has now swallowed up 80% of

the economy. Everything belongs to the state.

And the state is a monopolist employer.

That has to be fought. And in that sense,

we should be reducing the state’s influence.

But if you’ve already taken over this hospital and,

taking advantage of the fact that it’s the only

hospital in town, you pay people three times

less than you should, then

that is not a market measure. They’ll tell you, they’ll

tell you—economists, statists, or

those who work for the state—well,

fine, if we start paying

the way you want, that’s inflation.

>> And I would answer those economists,

those statists, that they can go to

hell. Inflation is spending

on Channel One, on Channel Two. Inflation

is spending on Solovyov (a pro-Kremlin TV host). Inflation is

700 million rubles allocated here for

monitoring. Something online again.

Inflation is the Yarovaya laws (a package of restrictive anti-terror legislation), which,

as we know, will cost the economy

billions, even trillions of rubles. And in

that sense, our state

just throws money around literally—$17 billion

was handed over to Venezuela.

Rossi,

well, fine, I won’t go on about Venezuela.

Today it was announced that we are giving Cuba $2

billion to restore its railway

system. I mean, for heaven’s sake.

How much longer can this go on? You’re not paying people

the wages they are owed here and now.

Pay the nurse in Moscow and St. Petersburg,

instead of giving it to Cuba.

>> But look, trade union activity,

poor people, and so on—what is this,

a move away from political activity toward

some kind of social advocacy

work?

>> It may look like I’m moving away from political

activity. Trade unions, all these

wage payments—in Russia right now, all of that is politics.

Everything is. They have effectively banned political

parties. They have banned me from taking part in

elections. And any activity for us

is forbidden. Absolutely. And in that sense,

any activity by any people who

do something without the state is

politics. Lisa is handling Vorobyova's case.

an alert goes out and she runs through the forest looking for people.

Is this politics or not? Of course it is

politics.

>> No, we've argued about this many times

and every time you haven't

let us sort it out afterward.

>> Absolutely right. It's just that Alexei Navalny has been wrong about this

for many years now. But still,

nevertheless, nevertheless, I mean this

can we say—well, even though we've already

briefly touched on

this topic—can we say that this is, in

some way, a repetition of the experience of

Wałęsa (the Polish Solidarity leader), when through the trade union

Solidarity he essentially came to

political power. Well, I would say

this: any authoritarian regime will, one way

or another, at some stage of its development

run into trade unions, because it will,

uh, suffer an economic failure; they simply

won't have the money to pay people. There,

the Solidarity trade union began with high

meat prices, as we remember, yes, and with

low wages. People came out and said:

"Well then, please either make

meat cheaper, or pay us

a decent wage." And in Russia now

without Poland, without Wałęsa, although,

of course, we are studying that experience,

the situation is exactly the same. People are not being

paid enough, they are not united in

any way, they are forbidden to organize,

they are afraid. And so someone has to

step forward and say: "Then—well, we're not

afraid, we will defend your

interests." That's what I'm doing.

>> We have two questions now from our

listeners. First: what would you say

to people who say that this will

trigger staff layoffs,

the closure of institutions, further "optimization"

that everyone is already sick of.

How would you answer them?

>> I would laugh in response to those claims,

because in Moscow, for example, how many

clinics and hospitals has Sobyanin already shut down?

Sixty, I think—Yashin has a video about this.

They

look, we're talking about the present—2018

and 2019. The program was set back in the 2000s and runs through 2019.

>> Right, so people don't think this was

recorded earlier.

>> Yes, exactly. They have already, in

Moscow, "optimized" so much and cut so much

that they can absolutely afford to pay

these salaries. Beyond that, it is no longer

connected at all. That's the point. And

especially when we're talking about Moscow, with

a budget of, let me remind you, 2.5 trillion rubles. That money

has already been allocated. Those salaries—

higher pay for daycare workers, schoolteachers,

and university lecturers—have already been

budgeted somewhere; they're just not being paid.

Interesting. And you know what? Let's ask

our listeners to text us—say,

doctors, for example, at least

let Muscovites write in, and people from any

cities too, saying how much they earn, just

out of interest.

Write to us—it's just a great

exercise.

>> Sobyanin has probably grabbed his phone right now,

sending texts saying everyone gets

300,000 rubles. +7985 970 4545.

That's the number for your SMS messages.

Send us a message if you work in the public sector. How much do you earn

in Moscow? And for what job?

Or in another city. Other cities are much

worse off. And

>> Navalny has a list of cities.

>> The second question our

listeners are asking is this: if someone complains and then gets

fired, will you help and

defend them?

>> Of course, yes. That's the whole point of a trade union.

Absolutely, we will not allow that person to be fired;

we will fight for them. And the trade unions

that work with us fight for them too.

Well, in fact, that's a large part

of trade union activity. It's built

on this, because, uh, someone is the first to

stick their neck out, and the employer naturally wants to

devour them. Then people

have to unite and defend one of their own.

Well, this is a long-standing,

long-standing story of trade union development in different countries.

It's clear how

to do this.

>> Alexei, are you shifting the focus to this

activity away from the fight, the fight against

corruption, or are the two connected?

>> Well, of course, we're adding to what we already do. We

have expanded significantly and increased the number of

lawyers. In other words, we're not scaling anything

back. More than that, all these trade-union and wage issues

are already bringing us

corruption stories. Because

when you start digging into

why a hospital pays its orderlies so

little, the first thing you do, of course, is

look into that hospital's procurement records

and you see things there that make it

very clear—yes, absolutely. You see? And

again, take the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), yes—they write

to us from Rosgvardiya and from EMERCOM (the Ministry of Emergency Situations), and you see

on the one hand miserable salaries, and on

the other hand insane, stupid,

unthinkable spending on all kinds of nonsense.

Politician Alexei Navalny is with us

on the air. Let me remind you that you've been sending

messages with your salary. All right. Since

the center—or rather, everything—seems to be shifting toward

some kind of left-wing space. And here

they're asking a perfectly logical question:

"What about left-wing organizations?" This is

the eternal question of unification, but I mean

joint work. Left Front, Sergei

Udaltsov and so on. Have you somehow started

cooperating on this issue?

>> We haven’t started cooperating with anyone,

because there is simply nothing like that in

Russia. We started cooperating with

trade unions. We are working with them and, yes, with

genuinely independent ones, because

the sellout unions in Russia are literally

called the Federation of Independent

Trade Unions. They supported, yes,

the Shmakov line (referring to Mikhail Shmakov, head of Russia’s official trade union federation). They voted for raising,

well, they supported raising the retirement

age. There is a small number of

truly militant unions, and we began

working with them first and foremost

because they are actually doing

something.

>> Where? In which sectors, if you’re talking about this?

>> Well, healthcare first of all, of course,

>> healthcare. Are there independent unions there?

>> Yes. The best-known one there is the Doctors’ Alliance,

a genuinely militant union. We

post videos about it, about how they

there were also auto workers, construction workers, I think,

I remember, yes, locomotive crew drivers,

air traffic controllers. There are real

trade unions in Russia, but among

public-sector employees, of course, there are fewer of them, because

public-sector workers are under tighter control. But they do

exist, and we will work with them, we

will help them. It’s not an easy process, but

it is being done, and we will keep doing it.

Well, to wrap up the topic of

trade unions, let me read out some

messages that have come in.

Yekaterinburg,

so, a doctor: salary has fallen since June

by 20,000 rubles, now it is at most 30,000 rubles

for a nurse, 12,000 rubles. And how much should it

be?

>> Well, for Yekaterinburg, I have

Moscow and St. Petersburg here, but I can tell you more or less

accurately that in Yekaterinburg a doc

doctor should be earning on average around

80,000 rubles, no less, and a nurse,

accordingly, should be getting around 40,000

rubles. 40,000. Rostov-on-Don: a preschool teacher

20,000 rubles; nurse, St. Petersburg—

12,000 rubles.

>> There you go. Let’s

pause there. St. Petersburg. I have it

written right here: medical staff in

St. Petersburg should be earning 60,000—59,200 rubles

on average. This person

might earn a little less, yes, if

she works somewhat fewer hours or something. Excuse

me, but not 15,000, certainly not 12,000 rubles.

An OB-GYN working 1.5 full-time positions

in Zelenograd: 62,000 rubles. An OB-GYN,

that is a doctor. So that person should

be earning 164,000 rubles for one full-time position.

>> Teacher, St. Petersburg: 52,000 rubles, but that is for

a very large number of hours, not for the standard 18-hour teaching load. That’s

what Oksana writes, and Lyudmila here from Moscow says

59,000 rubles for a full-time position.

>> That’s exactly the point. You see, we

started doing this not because I

came up with it, but because during

the presidential campaign I traveled around the whole

country, and at every meeting people

told me: “We’re not being paid.”

>> Well, you did come up with what to say, of course. Yes.

>> Well, I gave it form, so to speak, but this

wasn’t invented out of thin air—it really came

from real life.

>> Alexei, still, there is one question that, as I understand it, Irina and I

just can’t let go of, and I think our listeners

feel the same. After all, this is

a move away from a purely political

sphere into a new, relatively new one,

namely the trade-union sphere. I mean, well, at least

then let me ask a simple question, since we’re in

the year 2019 and it’s still January: do you have,

for example, some kind of electoral plan

for 2019—the elections in St. Petersburg and so on?

Will you

be taking part in the political process

>> Absolutely, yes, we will—and more actively

than before, more actively

than in the last couple of years. Well, since the

period when I was not registered as a candidate.

In the presidential election I called for

a voter strike, for a boycott.

Now, for this season, we have big

plans. For September, first and foremost

they are connected with the elections to the

Moscow City Duma. Secondly—or maybe

actually first and foremost—they are connected with

the elections in St. Petersburg

for municipal deputies, yes, and

for governor, as well as with the Moscow City Duma in Moscow.

There are also elections in Khabarovsk, in Vologda,

there are important regions. But of course Moscow

and St. Petersburg come first. In that sense

we are absolutely not leaving this

format of struggle. The only thing is that I

personally am not allowed anywhere, but that does not

mean that we will not support

others.

>> But explain this. So, in the presidential election,

which you were barred from, you boycotted it,

called for a boycott, criticized those who

went to vote. Then Primorye happened

and some other things. Then you rushed in saying,

come on, go vote. How is the decision

made about that, exactly?

Whether to go vote or not to go vote.

>> For this season?

And decisions are made on the basis that

we are reasonable people. We are not robots

who have simply been given an algorithm: do not

participate in elections, and then never

participate. When elections are not really elections at all

and a boycott or voter strike will be worse for the authorities,

we boycott or call for

a strike. When participation is needed,

we take part. In that sense, it’s a flexible

position. In Primorye (Russia’s Pacific coastal region), we urged people

to participate, because among other things

candidate Ishchenko, who was barred from running,

was calling for it—he urged people to spoil their ballots,

while we urged people to vote for anyone. In

that sense, we’re looking for the right format, well,

for example, St. Petersburg—look, there,

of course, it’s absolutely necessary to participate and

to vote for local deputies,

because United Russia currently, when it comes to

municipal offices, controls

90% of the seats, which for St. Petersburg is just

ridiculous.

>> And there’s also the municipal filter (the rule requiring signatures from municipal deputies to register candidates).

>> The most opposition-minded city. Absolutely

right. But we know how things work in St. Petersburg

They’ll wait until it matters and then

simply refuse to register a single

person. Then we’ll sit down and think

about what needs to be done, because there are also

the gubernatorial elections. Each time it’s

an individual decision based on

the actual circumstances, not just

on some kind of stubbornness. Not just: we only boycott

or we only participate.

>> Well, I have, I have, you know, this kind of

inside information from St. Petersburg.

Uh, that most likely, as many people believe

political analysts there—and not only

political analysts—that most likely the opponent

to Beglov from the opposition, yes, will be Ksenia

Sobchak. Are you ready to support her?

I think that from Beglov’s point of view, for

Beglov, who is a very weak

candidate, to win, he of course needs

someone even weaker and even more

bizarre as an opponent. And besides, for

him it matters to have a candidate who called for

raising the retirement age, because

that’s a key issue in the election right now. But

as for the gubernatorial election in St. Petersburg, in

that sense, we have much more freedom.

Sobchak won’t be the only one on the ballot there.

>> In order to—

I mean, there will be a Communist candidate

in any case, right? There will be

a candidate from the LDPR, from A Just

Russia, from the parliamentary parties.

>> So anyone at all, just not Sobchak.

>> No, anyone at all—just not Beglov.

The call will be to force

a second round. To force

a second round, you simply need to come out and

vote for anyone except Beglov.

For Sobchak—I don’t care. If it’s a matter of

stopping Beglov, then—

>> that’s unrealistic

Sobchak versus Beglov in the second round.

>> Ah, well, that’s good then. If it ends up being

Dzhigurda or Alexei against Beglov, Ir,

I’m not going to discuss some kind of

artificial hypotheticals, you know?

Fine. And what if it’s a Beglov look-alike against

Beglov? What if it’s Putin against Beglov? On

questions about Ksenia Sobchak, Alexei

Navalny refuses to answer.

>> Of course, because Beglov and Putin

want us to sit here and discuss

Ksenia Sobchak. And that’s a favorite pastime

on Moscow radio stations. I’m not

going to find out whether this will now make it

into the news in a few

seconds.

Let me remind you that this is the program *2019*. Our

guest is politician Alexei Navalny. We obviously

won’t have time to ask all your questions,

but I’ll really try

to get to some of them.

Why are you so hung up on that ridiculous Sobchak?

>> Right. Right. Let’s ask Alexei for YouTube

about it.

>> Let’s ask.

>> Let’s also talk about Venezuela.

>> No, no, no, wait—first for YouTube.

Please tell us

about

Instagram—your own, I mean.

You post Stories, you’re very active, and your

daughter has started an Instagram account. How is all of that

going? Is everything going great?

Instagram is very important. I spend

a huge amount of time on it. I’m not a fan of Instagram.

To me it’s a social network that’s

strange.

>> But it really is the main social network in the country right now,

especially in the regions. Yes,

and that’s why I’ve turned into an Instagram

slave. I constantly have to

take pictures of myself. For Instagram

to grow, you need to post a little photo once a

day, otherwise Instagram will just

push you down. And damn it, where am I supposed to get that

little photo? So you think,

I’ll take a selfie now, right? You’re out on the street thinking about it.

>> Exactly, it’s awful. But

>> Listen, I want to tell you that

Yunis, the owner of this Helvetia hotel,

had some Instagram person of his

tell him, “You don’t need anything.” He

said, “Just walk around your

hotel and film it.” He says, and

people will watch that. You just need to film

yourself walking around and filming,

that’s all—you don’t need anything else, no need to clown around.

By my temperament, I’m just so far

removed even from the desire

to be photographed and post little pictures.

I’m forced to do it. It’s very funny. She

asks, Stas: “Do you get any income

from monetization on your channels on

YouTube?”

>> On my main channel there is no

advertising, and there has never been any monetization.

On Navalny Live, we sometimes

turn monetization on for some

videos, but the income is laughable—something like

$200 or $300 a month. So

If there is any, it’s very little money. We don’t really

do this seriously.

>> So, what else should I ask you for YouTube?

?

What should I ask you for YouTube?

Yes, yes, that’s why we’re asking for YouTube.

Yes, there was also a question

somewhere far up in the feed. How many people

work on the editorial side of all your

channels that prepare all these broadcasts and

yours, Sobol’s, and everyone else’s?

That number varies, because when we need

to do a live broadcast from

rallies all across the country, we need far more people

than in the usual condensed format, but

overall, probably around 20 people handle

all the video production.

>> All video, all of it, including

Instagram.

>> Well, unfortunately, Instagram is something you can’t really delegate

to anyone. You have to

take your own photos.

>> I see. All right, good. So now

for YouTube, I’ll also say that I don’t have time

to see your questions. Only the ones that,

unfortunately, pop up. We do have

paid questions, and I see those because

they’re paid questions. Beyond that, I don’t know what

happens to them. Don’t ask me

about monetization. I have no

idea.

>> Could someone please ask for

some more tea for me? Can you hear me there? Yes.

>> And now I...

>> Ars, just ask the girl, please. Thank you

very much.

of the victory program. The project...

Actually, aren’t you hot? It’s a bit warm

and there’s not really anything to open.

>> Well, we do have air conditioning here.

>> We’ll ask for it to be turned on now.

>> All right, I’ll text them now. It’s like a

sauna in here.

>> Right, let’s move on.

19.

>> Good evening once again. Program 2019.

Let me remind you, today there are two hosts:

Irina Vorobyova and me, Vitaly

Dymarsky. And our guest is a politician and

a trade union figure. You see, now we can already

introduce him that way. In the Voronezh sense.

.

>> Well, just a little bit, only slightly.

Remind them, Ira: +7985907

4545 for your text messages. The account is called

on Twitter and on YouTube. Yes,

>> Yes, you can also write from the website and from the

app. In short, there are plenty of

options. Lyosha, Alexei, tell me,

please, do you want things to be

like Venezuela or like Paris?

>> I don’t want... What I want is for it to be like Paris,

of course, not like Venezuela. I absolutely

do not want that, because before

all this happened in Venezuela, and

it’s still unclear how it will end, the country

had truly plunged into an economic

catastrophe. Even the final years of the Soviet

Union are not comparable. Ten percent of the population

fled. People were fighting in

lines for soap. It’s a real

catastrophe.

>> 10,000%

inflation.

>> Much more than that, actually. Much

more. The inflation there is simply unimaginable.

They took a rich country and drove it

straight into ruin, into catastrophe.

Some kind of paramilitary, uh, gangs

working for Maduro are attacking people.

There are clashes involving killings. In

that sense, people have simply come out

out of desperation. They’ve been coming out since 2017

— for two years straight they’ve been protesting and making demands.

And up to now, Maduro had simply been managing to contain it.

But now, apparently, he isn’t. And I

of course welcome the fact that a fully legitimate

politician, the head of the National

Assembly, declared himself president

in order to get out of this mess, uh, out of

this crisis.

>> Well yes, it’s hard to call him an impostor.

>> Absolutely. And the fact that the Kremlin is lying now,

and Medvedev and Putin as well — Medvedev is

posting tweets on Twitter calling

the speaker of parliament an impostor.

Though if anyone there is really an impostor, it’s

Medvedev. There is only one

legitimate branch of power, and that is the elected

parliament, where the opposition won in

competitive elections. And now they are

trying to take power into their own hands, but it will be

a difficult process.

>> But there — what do you think, why

is Russia, Moscow, the Kremlin taking such a

position

in support of Maduro? Is it simply support for

the investments that have already been made

there? Maybe they just feel sorry for the money

they poured into Maduro?

>> Well, uh, it seems to me it’s all of that, or rather it’s a kind of

ideological political affinity. And

>> when that money was invested, it was clear

we would never get it back. Just recently

we forgave Cuba $31 billion in debt

and gave Venezuela $17 billion. Well,

it was clear they wouldn’t repay it, but this is

a kind of international alliance of authoritarian

leaders. Putin wants to support people like that,

people who stay in power for 20 years,

who have grabbed everything, who

treat the nation’s oil as if it were

their personal property, who use the state budget

to enrich their friends. He wants

to show that this is a normal way

to run a country. A way of legitimizing himself,

right? Exactly. In order

to support himself, he supports people like that.

everywhere. Just look at who we're friends with:

Zimbabwe, yes, Venezuela, Cuba.

And of course Assad is our main

buddy, for whom nothing is too much. No amount of

money will go to Voronezh, but in

Syria we'll repair roads. And in that

sense, Putin sees himself in all of them,

wants to save them, wants to help them.

And of course, all of this happens at our expense. And

Irina criticized me in the first part of the

program for once again bringing up

the $17 billion that we gave to

Venezuela. But that's 7,500 rubles per

Russian citizen, and it's impossible

not to talk about it. An absolutely

fantastic sum. Simply fantastic.

We have

>> including, apparently, for carrying out

machko.

>> Well, of course, of course. Yes, it's more

than our annual budget for education,

for healthcare—in fact, significantly

more. And

>> An unexpected question, sorry. The Anti-Corruption

Foundation is a nonprofit

organization,

>> right?

>> Uh, on the Anti-Corruption Foundation's website

there is a tab called "Report."

>> Yes. But when you open that tab, it

goes through all the months and so on,

saying: we did this investigation,

we made this film, this film, this

film. Unless I missed it,

or just didn't look well enough—where is the report on

expenses?

>> There is an expense breakdown there. We just

recently, at our last editorial meeting, we

>> discussed when the report for

the last year would come out. Ours usually comes out

around April every time. And in April

the report for 2018 will be published. You

just didn't look carefully enough. There's a completely detailed

report there with all expenses listed.

>> Do you report to the Justice Ministry?

>> Well, of course, because, first of all,

we report to the Justice Ministry, but we also

report to the people who are far

more important to us than the Justice Ministry—to the

people who support us. Because

if we don't report back, we won't

keep receiving those donations, and without

donations the Anti-Corruption Foundation

can't exist. And it's funded exclusively through

crowdfunding,

>> of course, we take that very seriously

because if people

stop supporting us and stop

trusting us, the Anti-Corruption Foundation

will cease to exist, because that is

our only source of income. That is

precisely what guarantees that we conduct

our work in a completely independent way.

We don't care about any of them. We don't have money from

any rich person

we go asking, because we have

several thousand—many thousands—of people

who send us 500 rubles or so. And

the rich don't sponsor us. Big

payments don't come in.

>> Well, large payments—more than 10,000

rubles—are those large payments anonymous, or

>> no? That's impossible under the law. Everything is

very clear-cut in that respect.

>> So if someone wants to support you

but doesn't want to be publicly identified, they

can't do it. No,

>> they can't. They can ask Vorobyov

to send us the money. In other words, a more

courageous person

>> than me doesn't exist.

>> But still, there just aren't any large sums. We have

Boris Zimin. He's a long-standing, very open

sponsor who

transfers money.

>> Yes, exactly. He sends about

300,000 rubles a month. Yes, that's the largest

donation we have in terms of

size—personally from him, of course, as a

Russian citizen. The investigations that

the Anti-Corruption Foundation carries out

regularly produce publications. But with

some investigations, I don't know,

in 2018 did anything actually happen—

some investigation, a criminal case,

someone removed from office? So, yes,

what kind of

>> response is there—both in practical terms and just as

public noise?

>> Our investigations leave a big

mark. Yes, I watched the speech in the State Duma today;

yesterday they did vote

for that law after all—yes, the law

by Klishas on insulting state authorities.

Well, all the deputies who are Communists and were

against it were all saying: "Klishas,

what the hell? He has a 9,000-square-meter house?" I

understand that they watched our

investigation, but let's be honest,

guys: when we release an investigation

against some

official, Putin, on principle, will never

dismiss that official.

>> So in that way, are you actually protecting him?

Not exactly protecting him, but for example,

Yakunin. Of course, Yakunin, the head of Russian Railways, was removed

because we released a series of

investigations, but that happened

>> yes, the "fur storage" (a sarcastic reference to a lavish luxury closet), there was a lot there.

yes,

he can't allow himself to appear weak,

or so he believes. But our investigation

the impact of your investigation,

>> yes, but our investigations change

society as a whole; they change attitudes

within society. Medvedev's collapsed approval rating—

he is now the most unpopular politician in the

country. That is to a large extent, of course, our doing.

the investigation. You're not Simon, because

people saw

that is, they compared their own way

of life with those famous dachas (country houses).

>> Wait, what about the recent events surrounding

Vladimir Putin's approval rating, the lowest

in its entire history — is that FBK's doing too?

>> Well, it's a combination of factors. Mainly

it's Vladimir Putin himself. Mainly it's

what we discussed in the first part

of the program. Vladimir Putin spent all

the money on Venezuela and doesn't pay doctors,

nurses, and kindergarten teachers.

That's why Putin's rating has now fallen so low.

That's Putin's achievement, of course, but it can't

really be measured. But, uh, we opened many people's eyes

to who Putin is, who the people in

his inner circle are, who his ministers are, and

what their lifestyle is like.

>> But you're accused of opening people's eyes

to far from everyone in

Putin's circle, to put it diplomatically.

>> Well, tell us who. Give us a name,

order someone up for us, and we'll do it.

>> No. It's just that some oligarchs or

people like them, people resembling oligarchs,

end up becoming the subject of your

research and investigations, while some

somehow stay on the sidelines.

>> The thing is, fine, tell me who

is being left aside.

>> Well, you know very well that people mention,

for example, Igor Ivanovich Sechin.

No one has written more about Sechin than I have.

Back when I was still a shareholder in

Rosneft, when he had just arrived,

when he became head of the board of directors, I was already fighting him

over this. Poor Sechin has really suffered from us,

though back then he suffered from

Novaya Gazeta (an independent Russian newspaper). In the chat they're suggesting Surkov

and Chemezov, for example.

>> That's me, I'm just reading what people in the chat

are suggesting.

>> Putin's inner circle is corrupt

through and through. There are several dozen people there —

you could take absolutely any one of them. But still,

we are a nonprofit organization. Our

resources are limited; we're not

an intelligence service. But we're gradually getting

to all of them. We, uh, publish the information

that we can find. But of course,

you mentioned Chemezov and Surkov — yes, they are

multimillionaires, billionaires,

people involved in corruption. But in order

to uncover that corruption, we have

to spend several months on it. And

we are, uh, a relatively small

organization that can handle maybe

two or three investigations at the same time, but

not 70. You know, Alexei, people do say

that the authorities — I don't know, Putin personally

or one of his aides or someone

else there in the

security services — you know, they say that on everyone,

even the people closest to the authorities,

there's a file on them, right? So what do you think:

do your investigations end up in those

files too, uh, wherever they may be kept,

whoever passes them around?

>> Yes, of course. And I'm convinced that

Russia's security services, first of all, do not

have orders to investigate corruption.

Second, well, we can see it from, from

the example of those famous — what were their names —

Chepiga, those two would-be poisoners, right? That's also

a demonstration of how

the Russian security services are organized, of their

professionalism. I think that, of course,

in searching for kompromat (compromising material) on people, they

also copy our investigations into those

files. Because Putin's method

of governing is this: he surrounds

himself only with people who are

compromised, who can be

jailed — justifiably jailed — at any

moment, and so they're always on the hook.

And our investigation is an additional

hook. Of course.

>> Politician Alexei Navalny is with us live on air.

Is there even one politician in Russia about whom

you can say something

kind, positive, and constructive?

A million of them. We don't have much

time left. Otherwise I'd spend an hour

just listing them. Well, listen, in Moscow there's Ilya

Yashin, Vladimir Milov — the people who

work around me: Sobol, Zhdanov,

Lyaskin, Volkov — that doesn't count, they're all

great, but they work with me.

They're wonderful, but still, there are others

who are great, the best politicians. I try

to gather people like that. But Yashin and Milov,

for example, don't work at FBK, but

they work with me because they are

wonderful. Yankauskas doesn't work at

FBK; he's a deputy in Zyuzino. In St. Petersburg there are

great politicians too. Yes, across the whole country

there are huge numbers of them. And we have 42

branches across the country. And in all those

forty-two branches there are absolutely

wonderful, fantastic people

who, in their own regions, where

the pressure on opposition members is 100 times greater

than in Moscow, still manage to do

amazing things.

>> What about Khodorkovsky?

>> Khodorkovsky, yes, is certainly a person who

does a lot. There are some things

he does that I like,

and some I don't. To the foundation.

>> No, he's involved with his Open Russia movement,

but we couldn't accept help from him

because, well, because it would be from

abroad, and that's legally impossible. And,

besides, why would we need that?

>> What do you mean? So what you're saying now is,

you're afraid to receive help from

Khodorkovsky?

>> I’m afraid. I can see that he is abroad,

and if he starts transferring

money from abroad, we’ll end up running around

dealing with the tax authorities and all the rest.

Fortunately, we have

enough people in Russia

who support us at a level that is not

wealthy, but sufficient for us to

carry on our work. One more question

about your investigations and about how

rich people and poor people relate. You were saying,

you talked about this when the subject was Medvedev

(former Russian president and prime minister). But many people have the impression

that with all these

investigations, videos, posts, and

broadcasts, you’re simply turning people

who are poor against people who are rich, regardless

of whether they are officials

or not.

>> But who are the rich and the poor in Russia? In

Russia, that’s not really how it works. No businessmen

in Russia are actually

rich. The truly rich people in

the country are maybe 500 families, or

perhaps 1,000 families, all connected in one way or another

to the authorities—oligarchs and so on. Everyone

else is poor. Even those mid-level businessmen

are poor in the sense that

under normal circumstances they would be

much wealthier. In Russia,

22 million people live below the poverty line.

Of course, absolutely, I am turning

every one of them against someone like

Shuvalov (a senior Russian official), who has, excuse me,

gone completely overboard buying palaces and apartments.

Of course I am turning them

against Vladimir Solovyov (a pro-Kremlin TV host), who feeds these

poor people a load of nonsense and

at the same time buys a first, second, I don’t

know, third, tenth—

I was once asked about Solovyov. He

said: “Yes, he hasn’t broken any

laws.” He says: “Yes, I earn a lot.”

”

>> Great. And I am turning everyone against

that—against that hypocritical position. What

does “I earn it” even mean? He lies on television

with my money paying for it.

>> What do you mean, “his job”? Alexei, he isn’t

a government official. What kind of job is that? It’s not a job,

it’s a crime. An organized

criminal group has seized power in

my country. They have a specific

person assigned the role of liar in this criminal

group. He appears on Channel Two,

he is paid unimaginable sums. With that money

he buys a villa in Italy.

Absolutely, Irina, you probably

thought

>> you probably thought I was going to say: “No,

I’m not turning the poor against the rich. I’m

turning the poor—and even the rich—

against Vladimir Solovyov.”

I am, and I believe they should fight

him. Him, and Shuvalov, and

Medvedev, and Putin. And

>> turning them toward what? What does “fight”

mean exactly? How do you fight Solovyov?

>> So that they don’t believe them, so that they vote

against them, so that they protest against them,

so that they try to remove them

from power—them, and their

governors, and their mayors, and so on, and

so forth. And there is a positive program too.

Let them vote against them—but for me.

>> And about voting against United

Russia (the ruling party), which was also published,

this whole “how we will defeat United Russia” idea—I,

to be honest, didn’t understand anything

at all. Can you explain?

>> It’s bad that you don’t understand. Well,

that probably means I explained it badly. It’s

a simple thing. Look, we started talking about

St. Petersburg here. And it works for Moscow

too. What will turnout be in

the Moscow elections? We understand it will be

around 20% in St. Petersburg, and given that

there will be a gubernatorial election, maybe

25–30% at most. In that sense, we

understand that if we

coordinate, there are enough of us to

elect any candidate. But you and I

are going to vote in a scattered way.

Vorobyova will vote for one candidate, Dymarsky

for another, and I for a third. So my

proposal is simple: let’s, all of us,

agree, guys, and make a list. And

when we vote in a coordinated way for

one person, the math shows

that just 5–7%

of voters is enough for us to defeat United Russia candidates,

because the masses no longer want to vote

for United Russia. In 2007,

this would not have worked.

>> So you agree to coordinate

lists? Yes. Exactly. In that sense, with other

others.

>> that’s the only thing that makes sense: for us to

reach an agreement. It’s just that when we talk about

coordinating lists with other

representatives,

it’s a bit utopian, because

it has never worked in all of history,

which is why it never works. So

my proposal is that

the people who need to agree are not

the politicians, but us. We

should look at who is stronger. But you’re

a politician. So what do you mean by “us”? Well,

politicians—not the ones who participate in it

in exactly that way. We should simply

sit down ourselves and make a list of the

strongest candidates and vote for

them regardless.

>> Does that mean, as I understand your

words, that Navalny or his

team will draw up this list and then

publish it,

>> will explain it to you. And you’ll agree with my

logic, but Navalny will draw it up according to

the rules. Not just based on what I say, like,

this one,

>> yes, all mine, uh, or these ones I

like, and these ones I don’t. There will be clear

criteria, there will be a clear explanation. And I

assure you, when you see why

we selected a list like this, you will

agree with it. After that, we must all

vote together for one person.

>> Listen, then let’s go back to the question of

the presidency,

>> sure. Uh, what do you think, uh,

right now people are discussing very different ways

by which Putin will try

to stay in power after twenty

twenty-four? First, do you believe

that this is what will happen, and second,

what path, in your view,

might the authorities take to extend

Putin’s time in power? I, I

am convinced that this will happen, and I do not

see any other

scenario in which Putin loses

power. Well, Putin’s plan

is to remain

president or head of state,

to control power until he dies. I don’t even

think they need any

alternative where there would be some kind of

parliamentary republic. He would become

head of parliament. There. The Belarus scenario

is more realistic. That is, he

will say: "Well, I used to be president of

Russia, and now for another 12 years I’ll be

president of Russia and Belarus." That kind of thing

is вполне likely, but I

think that, basically, they will simply

abolish all term limits. At the request of

the working people, Volodin will introduce a bill

to remove any restrictions on

the length of time someone can remain in

the presidency. After, after, after

that, to the joyful applause of all

United Russia members, this law will be passed. Uh, and then

Putin will come out and say: "But I didn’t want this."

Well, you know, the people are asking for it. Here we are,

yes, I mean, I’d really like to go

plant potatoes somewhere and play

hockey, but I can’t refuse you, people,

so I’ll stay in power for another 145

years. How do you feel about the fact that your

supporters, whenever anyone tries to ask you

a question, even on the air at radio stations

in Moscow, react very sharply and ask people

to stop picking on you and asking you

difficult questions? This happens all

the time across social media.

No, how do you feel about that? I, I’m

grateful to all the supporters who

support me. They are great and

wonderful people. Supporters are different. I

can’t control them. I assure

you that I do not ask any

supporters to deliberately, uh, write things

for me on Twitter or anything like that, but once again I

appeal to all supporters, and to you,

Irina, and to you, Vitaly. I want to say

that I, I like answering tough

questions. I love doing it. Go ahead,

come on. What tough question? Go ahead,

Irina, I’ll answer right away.

>> Irina, all politicians get offended by that. For

politicians. And how much do people write from Yabloko (a Russian liberal political party)?

Why are you insulting our Yabloko? Oh, let’s not

do this now after Sobchak, let’s not talk about

Yabloko here. Let’s not. I

>> no, I, I seem to be on excellent

terms with Grigory Alexeyevich (Yavlinsky),

the last time we saw each other,

we were hugging and kissing.

>> Wonderful. And a question that’s almost not about politics

at all. Do you feel your own

responsibility for what happened

in the end with Nastya Rybka?

>> Yes, of course, yes. That is exactly why I

wrote that post, even with those threats at the

end. And I am convinced that this

small investigation of ours into

involvement—well, the publication of this

wiretap, which we did not make ourselves but

was sent to us—was important.

Why was she released? Because we

showed: leave her alone already, she is

not the main villain in this story.

>> Do you know who sent it to you?

>> No. Well, we, we assume it was

some FSB people, but it was signed there

as “friend.” But I think it’s unlikely that

we know who.

>> How did you verify this wiretap?

>> As I wrote in the post. We even—when it was sent to us,

it was sent to us two months ago. We did not

do anything with it. It was sitting on YouTube,

you can check that. It has been on YouTube in

the public domain for two months. But only

after Deripaska himself demanded that

Roskomnadzor (Russia’s media and internet regulator) block it, did we

obtain legal proof that

it was a wiretap involving Deripaska.

Still, well, oh, there are actually

a lot of questions here about Ukraine, and

about Syria, and about Sergey Brilyov, by the way,

people are asking, saying, well, there was an investigation into

Sergey Brilyov and it

led nowhere.

>> Well, you see,

that—Lord, sorry—Peskov said

that Sergey Brilyov is the biggest

patriot there. What’s more, Sergey Brilyov,

being a British citizen, a subject of

Britain, as I wrote, does not have the right

to serve, for example, on the public

council of the Interior Ministry. We received a reply from

the Interior Ministry’s public council saying that the law had not

been violated. It’s just absurd.

The man has already admitted it. I’m a foreigner

a citizen. The Public Council says:

"We don't care." Well, foreign or not

foreign. Just look,

>> it's written somewhere that he has no right to. That's

a direct ban. A direct ban.

Look, take Open Russia (the civic movement linked to Mikhail Khodorkovsky), those

Khodorkovsky associates are being jailed for the fact

that they are members of some kind of,

foreign "undesirable organization." And

here we have a foreign citizen, uh,

a British citizen, even though Britain is

supposedly the main evil on

television right now, right? Sitting on the Public

Council of the Interior Ministry, and he was on the Public

Council under the Defense Ministry too, and that's considered normal. No one

pays any attention.

>> Listen, if you refuse,

of course, to comment on such

fantastical scenarios, right? But what if

tomorrow Navalny is offered

a government post,

>> Will Navalny get a government

post or not get one as a result of

elections? If there are fair elections in Russia,

I'll run in them, and I'll get that post if I

can persuade you to vote for me, or

I won't get it.

>> Or prime minister, for example, though right now in

Putin's system of power, well, as you

correctly said, first of all, that is

an absolutely impossible scenario.

Second,

>> just like Sobchak in the second

>> prime minister is even more impossible,

the prime minister in Russia is basically

nobody. I mean, who is Medvedev? He is

simply nobody. Putin runs everything. He

makes all the decisions. He is the foundation of this

power. This power rests on his personal charisma, which,

without question, he does have, and this

power is sustained by it. Everyone else is just

a bunch of nobodies.

>> So you want to rule?

>> I want Russia to have a situation

in which there is political

competition, there are elections. You run,

if you're elected, great; if not, well,

then wait and do a better job.

>> 20 seconds to address

the listeners once more about the union. And I

would like people not to be afraid to defend

their rights. And if you yourself are a public-sector employee or

you have a relative, if you are not being

paid what you're owed, understand that it is not

shameful, not scary, and not disgraceful to work

with us in order to force this

government to pay you what they have already

promised you and what has already been allocated in

the budget. So go to union.ru.

somehow report on the

union

results, and people won't support us.

>> That's it, time is up. Alexei

Navalny, thank you.

>> All the best

29.

>> Thank you very much. It was very interesting.

Great. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.